Wednesday 7 August 2013
With the tourist bit done and dusted and the gift purchases duly accounted for there wasn’t, when you looked at it objectively, a great deal to do apart from deliver The Visitors to the International Terminal at Cairns Airport.
Bags had been packed, breakfast consumed and we were pretty much ready to roll around eight-thirty. That might be seen as tad early when you’re looking at a twelve-twenty departure, but Hughesy’s point of view on these matters tends to involve getting there early, checking in and then sitting down and waiting.
After all, once you’ve arrived on the premises there isn’t a great deal that can go wrong, and after you’re checked in it’s their responsibility to make sure things go as planned. They’re probably not going to be able to deny you the chance to fly once you’ve got that boarding pass in your clammy claw. It’s not as if you’ve arrived too late...
Madam tends to work on the other version of things, preferring not to arrive too early and keeping the time in the terminal to a minimum, which explains why we turned off into a car park at the northern end of The Esplanade once we’d loaded the car and checked out of the Aquarius.
It wasn’t as if I was objecting, you understand, because the view, having moved along past the point where low tide mudflat turned into sandy beach, wasn’t too bad, the sun was shining and the overall conditions allowed Hughesy to rhapsodize on the joys of the Northern winter.
It also meant, however, that once we’d climbed back into the chariot and made our way to the Airport there was a substantial queue at the Jetstar check in counter. I’d been delegated the task of accompanying The Visitors that far while Madam parked the car, and by the time she joined us it was fairly obvious the immediate itinerary would involve much standing around and waiting.
Under Hughesy’s preferred scenario you get there early, check in as soon as possible and then take yourself to the relevant departure lounge and settle back to read (or whatever) until boarding time.
Had we got there half an hour earlier, one surmises the check-in would have been negotiated fairly rapidly, and from there it would have been a case of walking The Visitors to the foot of the steps that take you up to Departures and heading back to the car park.
With the prospect of what looked like a half hour wait while The Sister and The Niece made their way through the check-in queue it seemed like a case of bidding them farewell sooner rather than later and hitting the road ourselves.
After all, we had a good six and a half hours on the road along with breaks and other interruptions and Mickey’s big hand was heading towards the twelve with the other one nudging the ten.
Back on the road we headed back to the bottom of the CBD and headed out through Portsmith, avoiding the traffic lights along Mulgrave Road, and getting us out of the Cairns conurbation with a minimum of fuss.
Once we’d hit the highway there wasn’t a great deal to note as we headed out past Fishery Falls and Mirriwinni. One of these days I’ll manage to persuade someone to turn off into Babinda, but this wasn’t the occasion to suggest a detour.
We broke the journey briefly at a fruit stall on the southern outskirts of Innisfail, and again around the turnoff to Silkwood where a Portsmith Fuels outlet provided the chance to refuel. There was another fruit stall thereabouts, so I guess we could have saved the earlier stop, but there you go.
Or not, as the case may be.
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